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Beginner Week 2
Previous Lesson:Italian Alphabet 101, Italian Pronunciation 101, Greetings, Word Gender, Counting 1-10,Prepositions and Question words, Question Words and Prepositions (Part I)
Vocabolario | Vocabulary
I: Enough questions, I plead the fifth
Last lesson we learned some question words including the following:
Come? |
How?
 
Che? |
What?
Cosa? |
What?
cosa
| thing
Che cosa? |
What? (think What thing?)
Perché? |
Why, Because
Quale? |
Which?
Chiunque? |
Anyone? (Anyone at All?)
Chi? |
Who?
A chi? |
To whom?
Con chi? |
With whom?
Di chi? |
Whose? (Literally: Of who?)
Quanto?/Quanta? |
How much?
Quanti?/Quante? |
How many?
Ah, but
dove
did we leave off...what’s dove, you say?
Dove? |
Where?
Dovè? |
Where is?From this you might guess that either the accent or 
è
means is, and if guessedthe latter, you’d be right.
è |
isIs. A state of being. But without context, a question one might ask, as former President Clinton did, is what the meaning of is
is
. Does it tell you if something is a permanent quality or a passing condition? To answer thatquestion, Italian has two different verbs.
è |
is (permanent)
sta
| is (transitionary)
 
Beginner Week 2Remember last lesson we learned:
Come sta?
| How are you? (formal)
Come stai?
| How are you? (informal) Now you know what
come
means and what
sta
means, but what’s thedifference with
stai
?
Come sta?
also means
How is he/she/it?
In Italian when we speak formallyto someone, we talk with indirect discourse in the third person.
Come sta?
| How are you? (formal), How is he/she/it?What about me? What about everyone else?We’ve been taking baby steps, here’s the bigger picture:
Essere
: to be (permanent)
Stare
: to be (transitionary)
sono
| I am
sto
| I am
sei
| You are (singular)
stai
| You are (singular)
è
| He/She/You(formal) are
sta
| He/She/You(formal) are
siamo
| We are
stiamo
| We are
siete
| You are (plural)
state
| You are (plural)
sono
| They are
stanno
| They areYou’ll notice that the verbs contain the pronoun information. Mostcommonly you will not need the pronouns. Should you wish to place stresson the subject, however, they do come in handy:
io
| I
tu
| you (singular)
lui/lei/Lei
| he/she/you (formal)
noi
| we
voi
| you (plural)
loro
| them (also superformal you plural, now antiquated)When using pronouns, they use the same syntax as English, before the verb.Therefore,
io sono
means
 I 
am,
tu sei
means
 you
are
 ,
and so on.
 
Beginner Week 2
«
Essere o non essere?
»
 
That is the ultimate question. At least it was for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
o
| or 
non
| not
Essere o non essere
| To be or not to be Note that since Hamlet is contemplating suicide, he uses
essere
which exudesa sense of permanence. Once it’s done. It’s done.But though that might be the ultimate question there are a few more that youmight come across that also incorporate
essere
into them:
Che cosè? |
What is?
Com’è? |
How is?
C’è? |
Is there?
Ci sono? |
Are there? Note that in English, when speaking we tend to use contractions because theyseem more fluid (Would you say How’s it going? or How is it going?).Italians also strive for this fluidity, which helps give the language a melodicquality. So
Che cosè
, like What’s, combines a verb with the question word.Che cosa é is not used. [You can find more on contractionshere.]
Chiunque
? Still with me?Remember:
Chiunque?
| Anybody? Anyone? Anyone at all?
Qualcuno?|
Someone? Anyone?Seem ambiguous? The real difference here is when these are not used asquestions:
qualcuno
| somebody, someone
chiunque
| whoever, anyone who, anybody who, whichever Think of chiunque like a more desperate version of qualcuno. It’s been lost inthe woods longer, but the fact remains it’s lost.
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